ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister and PTI Chairman Imran Khan will participate in a telethon to generate funds for the flood victims in Pakistan.
The announcement was made by the party’s general secretary Asad Umar from his Twitter handle who said that the details of the telethon will be shared later.
“Our senior leadership met and we decided I would do[an] international telethon to raise funds for flood affectees on Monday night,” the former premier wrote on his official Twitter handle.
He said that ‘Imran Tigers’, a term he uses for PTI’s tiger force, will be activated to volunteer for relief work. “A committee under (Dr) Sania Nishtar will be set up to identify and coordinate funds allocation based on needs,” he added.
Imran clarified that his movement for “real freedom” will continue alongside the flood relief work. Sources, however, said that the party has decided to postpone scheduled political rallies owing to flood devastations across the country.
The decision came under heavy criticism from the government coalition who blamed Khan for not collecting funds for flood victims. Khan initially had refused to collect funds for flood victims, saying that he was not in power and had no clue of the actual assessment of the needs of the affectees and also did not have proper mechanism to distribute among affectees.
Historic monsoon rains and flooding have affected more than 30 million people over the last few weeks across the country. The destruction of infrastructure and breakdown in communication links adds to the difficulties faced by the authorities in rescue and relief efforts in the region.
The government has called on the international community to help as it struggles to cope with the aftermath of torrential rains that have triggered massive floods, killing nearly 1,000 people.
On Friday during his visit to the flood-hit areas of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Imran announced the construction of 10 more dams in the province to avoid the recurrence of the devastation caused by the ongoing super deluge in the province.
Imran Khan visited Dera Ismail Khan and Tank districts and interacted with the flood victims at a relief camp set up at the Ratta Kulachi Sports Complex. Accompanied by K-P Chief Minister Mahmood Khan, the former PM reviewed the relief and rehabilitation activities in the affected areas.
“We can easily store water if we had dams,” the former prime minister said. “A dam should also be built on Mount Sulaiman. The sole solution to prevent the catastrophes caused by flood is to construct dams.”
Imran said that current floods were more destructive than those in 2010, adding that Sindh and Balochistan were the most-affected provinces by rains and floods. He directed the party’s volunteers to help and serve the flood-affected people.
The announcement came a day after the former prime minister while visiting flood relief camps in DI Khan said that he was under pressure to initiate a fundraising for the victims, however, he will not do so unless he is confident of how the money would be spent.
